Earnings Labs

Inseego Corp. (INSG)

Q3 2020 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 5, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Inseego Corp.'s Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that today's event is being recorded. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] On the call today are Dan Mondor, Chairman and CEO; Craig Foster, Chief Financial Officer; and Ashish Sharma, President of IoT and Mobile Solutions. During this call, non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release, which is available on the Investors section of the Company's website. An audio replay of this call will also be archived there. Please also be advised that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but rather are based on the Company's current expectations and beliefs. For a discussion on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, please refer to the risk factors described in our Form 10-K, 10-Q and other SEC filings, which are available on our website. Please also refer to the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements section contained in today's press release. I'd now like to turn the call over to Dan Mondor, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Hello, everyone. It's great to be with you today, and I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. I am proud that Inseego can play a major role in helping people everywhere stay connected and productive at home. We had a monumental third quarter with $90.2 million in revenue and $7.4 million in adjusted EBITDA, both up strongly on any measure and well ahead of consensus. In particular, I want to draw your attention to one other achievement, and that is achieving positive free cash flow this quarter. All our major milestones and confirm the success of our turnaround strategy, which began in 2017 and point to the company shifting to a growth and cash generation phase. We are seeing strong demand across the Board for our mobile broadband, fixed wireless access, IoT and cloud SaaS solutions, and we are rapidly adding numerous new customers in our target markets. Let me touch on a few important developments in each. Inseego recently introduced the new second-generation 5G mobile broadband hotspot, the MiFi M2000. Verizon launched this new device in September. And as you saw announced last week, the fourth-largest carrier UScellular is now our customer. You should expect to see additional announcements like this as the MiFi M2000 becomes the gold standard 5G hotspot in North America. We are also making great progress internationally, and I am pleased to announce Swisscom as a new 5G customer for the MiFi M2000. Swisscom is the leading service provider in Switzerland with a nationwide 5G network that covers 90% of their population. And similarly expect to see further customer announcements in Europe, Middle East, and Asia for the M2000 in the coming months. We are very excited to announce upcoming launches of our fixed wireless access products with customers both in North America and…

Ashish Sharma

Analyst

Thanks, Dan. Let me provide some more details on our new growth initiatives. In addition to our service provider business, we see an even larger opportunity for our fixed and mobile solutions in that applied markets. One of the largest and newly developing enterprise market segments is private networks. The total addressable market for this segment alone is projected to grow from roughly $600 million today to $65 billion in 2030, a CAGR of 60%, the majority of which will be 5G. In addition to the silent network market segment, there are many other enterprise opportunities where 5G would be a game changer. So to position ourselves well in these newly developing markets, we are announcing a new portfolio of 5G enterprise products that will deliver connectivity for a wide range of private and public sector enterprise use cases. Enterprise customers have special requirements, including alternate WAN connectivity options, enterprise-based security, industrial-grade liability and low-latency applications. That’s why we are developing solutions with software and hardware specifically designed for enterprise customers with demanding use cases. We expect to launch these products in the first half of 2021. At Inseego, we believe the combination of 5G capabilities as computing and machine learning software will radically change the way organizations do business. With this in mind, we are pleased to announce our participation in the new 5G accelerator program at Lake Nona. Lake Nona is a unique 17 square mile real estate development in Orlando, Florida with a Verizon 5G network have been operating. The accelerator there is bringing 5G leaders together in the U.S.-based Living Labs to create and develop new 5G use cases for commercial and residential tenants. With a team on the ground working with partners and potential customers, Inseego can help advance American 5G leadership in sectors such…

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Thanks, Ashish. We made tremendous progress in the third quarter and as we enter the fourth quarter, we are working on many fronts in the U.S. and globally to bring the power of 5G to users everywhere. I would like to take a moment to welcome Chris Lytle to our Board of Directors. Chris adds valuable expertise to the Board and Saas computing and product strategy. We also welcomed our new CFO, Craig Foster to the leadership team, and I am very pleased to introduce him to you now. Craig?

Craig Foster

Analyst

Good afternoon, everyone. As you likely know, this is my first quarter in Inseego, and I just want to take a second to thank everyone in the extended Inseego family for making me feel right at home from day one. During my career as CFO and Technology Investment Banker, I've always gravitated towards differentiating companies with strong roadmaps and Inseego is no exception. Dan and Ashish mentioned earlier some critical platform developments, and I want to emphasize how important they are to the evolution as a company. There is little argument that 5G is a game changer for both service providers and enterprises. And over the last year, our R&D energy has been focused on advancing our hardware offerings and integrating them into a cloud-based management platform. We believe this will provide incredible value to our customers and build long-term affinity for Inseego products as we continue to add capabilities to the platform. Armed with a stronger platform, our corporate priorities are very straightforward. First, continue to diversify and expand our global customer base; second, build performance leading products that accelerate the adoption of 5G worldwide. By all measurable needs, Inseego had a great quarter. In fact, it was the best quarter in seven years, which was well before any of the current management team was even working at the company. Net revenue was $90.2 million, an increase of 4% sequentially and 44% year-over-year. In addition, we are free cash flow positive in Q3, which is a major milestone event for the company. We continued to see robust demand for our flagship 4G products and more importantly, we are seeing continued traction for our industry-leading 5G portfolio. As a housekeeping item, last quarter we noted that we are going to be reporting our DMS business, which has been rebranded as…

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Thank you, Craig. We are pleased to be hosting a financial Analyst Day at November 17, which is also our 20th anniversary on the NASDAQ. We are bringing multiple new products to market, stay closely engaged with current customers and winning new customers in domestic and international markets. This has both tested and demonstrated our resilience during these extraordinary times. I want to express a sincere thank you to Inseego employees who continue to work around the clock. Customer demand for a mobile broadband and fixed wireless access products is very strong, which illustrates momentum throughout our 5G product portfolio. The upcoming 5G launches are a major step forward in diversifying our customer base and revenue streams. This will make for an exciting 2021 for the company and its investors. Thanks everyone for joining today's call. Stay safe and healthy.

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Jaeson Schmidt of Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Jaeson Schmidt

Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just curious if you could comment on what you're seeing from a supply situation, if there were any constraints in Q3 and how you're thinking about that situation in Q4?

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Yes. Hi, Jaeson. Good to speak with you again. Yes. The overall dynamic in the industry is challenging the supply chain. As I'm sure you've heard fairly widely, we're working diligently at it every day. We did make some moves quite a while ago as far as diversifying and strengthening our contract manufacturers. And basically as we've mentioned before, going with Foxconn. The other important thing to mention is that we are working directly with the component suppliers, specifically those with long lead times to secure the quantities that we need. So working with Foxconn and working very closely directly with a component providers, both together has really helped us keep the supply chain flowing quite well. As a matter of fact, not going to say there aren't challenges, but we are working at them every day.

Jaeson Schmidt

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And then just as a follow-up. Curious if you could comment on what you think the inventory situation out there it looks like on the MiFi hotspots?

Dan Mondor

Analyst

You're referring to the inventory held by our customers.

Jaeson Schmidt

Analyst

Correct.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Yes. I’m not going to comment on inventory levels for customers that's actually, quite frankly, it is the strategic decision on their part. So I wouldn't want to comment on that Jaeson.

Jaeson Schmidt

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot guys.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Lance Vitanza of Cowen. Please go ahead.

Lance Vitanza

Analyst

Hi guys. Thanks for taking the questions and great quarter. Congratulations. I guess I wanted to start with [indiscernible] exciting to hear about this new portfolio of products focused on private networks. I know it's not going to launch until next year here, but I think you said the first half of next year. And so I was wondering again, could you talk a little bit more about what those products and services look like? And do you have any flagship customers involved? I'm trying to get a sense for whether this is kind of a – you're looking at this huge 60% CAGR and is kind of like a build it and they will come, or are you working closely with customers to make sure that these launches go well and that the product and services are well received?

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Yes. I’ll ask Ashish to comment. Thank you. Firstly, thank you, Lance. We see a tremendous opportunity in 5G adoption in enterprise and private networks. It’s beginning take hold, we want to leverage our 5G expertise naturally, and that's a huge market with a very high growth. So very, very important. We’ll be launching these products coming up early part of next year. So it's really an exciting time. It's a compliment to our carrier strategy, quite frankly. And Ashish if you could comment please.

Ashish Sharma

Analyst

Yes. Thanks, Dan. And as Dan said, it's a new market in the making, it's one of the growth markets we’re looking at. And as you know, there is activity happening in many countries on the private 5G and 4G licensing of the bands, the frequency bands. I mean, there was a recent auction here in North America, in U.S. on CBRS. And so those are creating new opportunities. There is an ecosystem Omega. So they are absolutely working with some key partners and customers to help build that market. It's a brand new market, so it's not a big established market, it’s a brand new market and we feel very good about the market.

Lance Vitanza

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. Can I shift gears and ask another question actually about on the margin performance. So the revenue blew me away. But I was actually surprised to see gross margin in IoT mobility, somewhat constrained. And I'm wondering if that is to some extent timing related. I mean, it occurs to me, you might be scrambling somewhat to do with the surge in demand. And if that's the case, I mean, assuming that the demand continues to remain strong which we think it will, how should we think about – will there be any kind of ramp in margins? And how should we think about the cadence of that ramp if it's going rapid?

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Craig?

Craig Foster

Analyst

All right. Great question, Lance. I think there's a lot of things happening in the margin side, but I think the short answer is, there is ample opportunity for accretion for markets. A couple of points that I'll comment on is, one, we're very sensitive to the product mix inside the company. And so we continue to sell very fast a bunch of our lower margin products as our 5G portfolio continues to ramp up. And another point is, as our volumes increase with our new products, obviously the prices that we're paying for finished goods or contract manufacturers will continue to go down. And then we have a number of initiatives internally on how we continue to cost down on the build materials. And some things that we can do that are innovative around our shipping and some other cost reduction initiatives. And as we think about margins, we also – when we just announced our software product and we will continue to see margins increase as the adoption of software coupled with the hardware that we are selling into the ecosystem through the channel.

Lance Vitanza

Analyst

Got it. Thanks, Craig. Appreciate that. If I could slip one more in. I just wanted to ask you about R&D spend. It's running about double what you spent last year, and I know obviously you talked a little bit about that in your remarks. Is that sort of kind of double what we did last year? Is any big baseline for Q4? And do you expect – should we think that that number is going to continue to grow maybe not quite double, but will that continue to grow in 2021 now that the balance sheet arguably has been freed up? You're sitting there with a lot cash et cetera.

Craig Foster

Analyst

Another great question. You're two for two. With regards to R&D, we will continue to see – I think there will be some increased R&D spend, but primarily the jump for us is going out and getting these certifications, so that we can launch with different carriers around the world. So I think it's a healthy sign when you see that, but the increased costs for us is not due to a ginormous growth of a new headcount or things like that. I think that probably Q4 for us will be a relative peak for us in terms of our spending and then maybe you will regress a little bit over the first half of next year.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

I think just to add to that Lance, we commented last quarter, we were pursuing certifications on wide front and there are separate certifications in North America, in EU, in parts of Asia-Pac. So all of those are being pursued in parallel, virtually that's a phenomenon that's gone through the latter part of the third quarter and early in and out of the fourth quarter. There's some information that you might've seen out there. So to echo Craig’s comment, there's a really aggressive pursuit of certifications as [indiscernible] course involves the non-headcount related expenditures.

Lance Vitanza

Analyst

Thanks, Dan. I will pass the baton and congratulations again.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Thanks again, Lance.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Scott Fessler of Stifel. Please go ahead.

Scott Fessler

Analyst

Hey guys. Congrats on the quarter and thank you for taking my question. I was wondering if you could talk to your outlook for the demand environment around MiFi for 2021.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Can you repeat the question?

Scott Fessler

Analyst

Yes, sure. I was wondering if you could talk to your outlook for the demand environment around MiFi for 2021.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Well, yes. So as we've talked in the past, we have multiple products coming to market as well as our existing products, and our new products, 5G across mobile broadband and fixed wireless. So when we think of MiFi, we kind of refer to the hotspot, but there's a much wider range and number of SKUs coming to market for 5G. As far as the COVID dynamic and the demand, we continue to see a very high demand for current generation 4G products. We're beginning to ramp our 5G products nicely and that will go into 2021. So as we broaden the product portfolio, as we broaden the number of launches, we're going to see a wide range of our 5G products ramp up. And in terms of the new paradigm, as we said before, we referred to a surge as opposed to spike. We believe we can forecast the future, but we believe that levels of demand for current generation products will be as higher, will plateau at a higher level than pre-COVID remains to be determined, how that plays out. But as we see demand and as we get weekly updates on demand, we still see a continued strong demand.

Scott Fessler

Analyst

All right. Great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

You bet.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Scott Searle of ROTH Capital. Please go ahead.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Nice job in a difficult operating environment, especially on the topline. Hey, I apologize. I got on the call a little bit late. I was wondering – did you provide any color related to 5G mix in the quarter? Top customers or the number of carriers that you're expecting to shift 5G this year are in certification process, any numbers around that front?

Dan Mondor

Analyst

We didn't break out a specific numbers now, Scott. We're seeing 5G ramp-up quite nicely as we had expected. We continue to see a great demand and great level of interest from carriers around the world. We indicated Swisscom as a new 5G customer for us. There's certainly more in the works in both our mobile broadband and our fixed wireless. So what's happening in loss of demand? And we see as we expected 5G ramping in the second half of this year, which it is doing and continuing throughout 2021.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Got it. And maybe just to follow-up on the outlook to the fourth quarter. I think you said you're comfortable to meet or beat the current fourth quarter estimates. I'm wondering what you're seeing specifically in some of the line items there. Are you expecting Ctrack growth? It sounds like things have bottomed there. Is that starting to recover sequentially? And what are your, I guess, expectations in terms of fixed wireless access going into the fourth quarter? Does that start to become a big contributor in ramp up now and otherwise 5G? Kind of how you're seeing that sequentially progress on those line items?

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Yes. Well, the last part first, Scott. We expect to see fixed wireless revenue ramping up at the end of this year. It's in the fourth quarter now. And we are actually preparing for four fixed wireless customer launches and we'll make announcements as those occur and actually as you know in cost of the carriers, the announcements occurred jointly if we're going to name names. So we have to work with them on the timing of those announcements, but fixed wireless is progressing along very nicely. We'll have revenue in the fourth quarter from fixed wireless again, as we move into 2021. I think relative to Ctrack, we've commented that the bookings, the level of activities returned to pre-COVID levels, the modulating factor is always the foreign exchange. And again, the fairly large swings that we could see times with the South African rand, but we see a resumption and return to growth in the Ctrack business.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Got it. And lastly, if I could, on the gross margins, Craig. Some progress this quarter given the scale, but you're still facing some basically COVID headwinds related to freight and otherwise and component availability. But it sounds like certainly 5G is going to help gross margins to the upside. I want to just confirm that in terms of how the new products are coming in? Are they coming in that target level of 30% kind of gross margins? And then what is the timeline? And is 30% still the target on the hardware front to get the 30%, what kind of timeframe we should be thinking about of you guys reaching that? Thanks.

Craig Foster

Analyst

Great questions. Thanks for the question. I think as we introduce new products, there's obviously initial builds and then there's volume-based markets. And I think when we think – when we start building our products, initial base is below the targets that we expect. And as we build to kind of like a real-time channel build plus volumes, then we think that we can get to target markets. And I think that timeline will be very, very sensitive to the channel build dynamics, which are happening a little bit in Q4, some in Q1, some in Q2. And I think it's more of a second half of the year and beyond event for us.

Scott Searle

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dan Mondor for any closing remarks.

Dan Mondor

Analyst

Great. Thank you, operator. Well, I just want to close by saying thanks again to everyone for joining today's call. Please stay safe and healthy. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation and you may now disconnect.